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Advantages
- code of conduct means ethical issues are avoided - researchers are requires to submit research proposals to PREC whereby they have identified and mitigated ethical issues. PREC decided is the research 1) can continue 2) can continue with ethical amendments 3) cannot take place
- cultural awareness - guidelines are updated frequently to meet cultural expectations (eg. to go along with medical discoveries) most countries have their own guidelines to reflect their own cultural diversity and practices (USA-APA, UK-BPS, China-IPCAS)
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Disadvantages
- Subjectivity - assessment of risk of harm differs from person to person, so it is almost impossible to set sensible guidelines for it. eg. some participants in Milgram (1963) had severe physical harm (seizures) and some were perfectly fine after the study.
- human behaviour - human behaviour is unpredictable and unreliable, so risk to participant may not be visible in the proposal to PREC and may not be evident until the harm is already done,
- restricting research - guidelines can limit and restrict what is able to be research due to the dilemma of deception and demand characteristics eg. Johnson (1939) attempted to induce speech impediments in children, whereas the children were told they were getting speech therapy.
- passive researchers - guidelines can make researchers more passive as they abdicate ethical decisions to PREC rather than finding their own solutions, thus blurring the lines of ownership and accountability of research and perhaps putting the quality of the research at detriment.
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